(9 November 1934 - 8 September 2020)
In recalling his most successful play and film, The Dresser, it is easy to forget that Ronald Harwood, who has died from natural causes aged 85, was a prolific writer. Born Ronald Horwitz in Cape Town, South Africa, to Lithuanian Jewish parents, he trained as an actor but, after Rada, found little success. However, working as Donald Wolfit’s dresser-assistant eventually led him to write. His first screenplay was A High Wind in Jamaica (1965), from Richard Hughes’s novel. He also wrote for the theatre, television and more films. He co-wrote Ken Hughes’ Drop Dead Darling with Tony Curtis, adapted John Harris’s novel Eyewitness with Mark Lester, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich for Tom Courtenay, and Alan Burgess’s Operation Daybreak for director Lewis Gilbert. He re-wrote Dylan Thomas’s The Doctor and the Devils, A Touch of Adultery for Julie Andrews and Marcello Mastroianni (aka A Fine Romance), Terence Rattigan’s The Browning Version for Albert Finney, a remake of Cry, the Beloved Country with Richard Harris, and his own play Taking Sides for director István Szabṓ. In 2002 Harwood’s screenplay for The Pianist won him an Academy Award. Other films included The Statement with Michael Caine, Being Julia with Annette Bening, Oliver Twist for Roman Polanski, Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Love in the Time of Cholera with Javier Bardem, Australia with Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, and his own play Quartet for director Dustin Hoffman. In 1980 he wrote The Dresser for the Royal Exchange in Manchester for Freddie Jones and Tom Courtenay. It was an immense hit, transferred to London and was filmed with Finney and Courtenay. Harwood’s last work was Richard Eyre’s TV production of it with Anthony Hopkins and Ian McKellen. Ronald Harwood married Natasha Riehle, who died in 2013. They had a son, Antony, and two daughters, Deborah and Alexandra. He was awarded the CBE in 1999 and was knighted in 2010.
MICHAEL DARVELL
